Tuesday, July 21, 2009

With A Final F-U

Today I went back to work for a completely unnecessary "turn-over" with my relief. Basically, a giant waste of time. But, of course - I knew that going in, didn't I? However, there were a few little loose ends I needed to tie up before a 2pm appointment with the base personnel department so I thought the trip may turn out to be somewhat useful.

I am an optimistic fool.

I got there at 8:15am and my relief wasn't in the office. He was still cleaning up from a visit to they gym. So, I twiddled my thumbs and made small talk until he showed up. Then, for about 45 min I went over everything that he already knew about and swapped sea stories. Finally I said that I wanted to go see if my old boss was in yet. She wasn't. She was out sick. So, we chattered with the ladies in that office for another half hour.

At that point I decided to visit the in-house personnel office to find out about my final fitness report and departing award. Neither were ready - AND they have had SIXWEEKS to get it together! Knowing that today was my last day! ARGH!

The Personnel Officer said that both were upstairs in the Command Office waiting for either the Chief of Staff or the Commandant's action. He said he would scoot up there and see what was going on and oh-by-the-way he really wanted to go home by 11:30am.

Really? BECAUSE I WANTED TO BE HOME ALL DAY! Geez! Turns out my fitness report had been sitting on the Commandant's desk since June 10th! WTF?!? And my award? Well, they just plain dropped the ball on that one. The Personnel Officer said he'd come out to the warehouse and let us know what was going on after he saw the Chief of Staff. That was at 9:30 AM.

Back at the warehouse, everyone goes about their jobs and I sit in a chair. FOR TWO HOURS! Finally, at 11:20 the Personnel Officer comes in and says that the COS wants to present my award at 11:30 (Guess you're not leaving at 11:30) so we all scuttle back to the main building and up to the command office. There, the COS launches into a 15 minute lecture of how awesome he is and how the college is awesome and oh yeah, I'm kinda awesome too.

Then the award is presented - and it's a downgrade from what I had put myself in for, but whatever. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. The COS asked me to say a few words so I say something like this:

"I've seen a lot of changes in my time here and met a few good people. I hope you all help out my relief." The. Fucking. End.

Then, the Commandant's aide says the Commandant won't have my fitness report ready until after 1pm. Fine, whatever - I'm going to lunch. I come back, get my fitness report (from the Senior Navy Rep - not the Commandant) and leave. Never to return.

You know, several people asked me today if I would be coming back - for lunch or whatever. Three guesses what my response was.